Facebook Confirms 83 Million Fake Accounts

Through company filings, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has revealed that it can peg a number of 83 million, or more with regard to fake users registered on the website. This number represents close to 8.7 percent of the 955 million active Facebook users.

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) went on to classify the fake users under three broad groups, the majority falling under the duplicate group, which represents 4.8 percent of active users. The other two categories were ‘user misclassified’ and ‘undesirable accounts’.

The ‘undesirable’ incline accounted for 1.5 percent of active users, and was exclusively reserved for users who breached fundamental terms of agreement. ‘User misclassified’, which made up for 2.4 percent of active users, were reserved for cases where users created personal accounts for business purposes and organizations among other uses.

Shooting itself in the foot

While Facebook is simply following ethical and professional procedures in releasing the contents of the company filings, its timing couldn’t be any worse. This issue comes at a time when the company is under profound scrutiny, following concerns that its business model could be a fraud.

To aggravate the already botched situation, Facebook posted huge losses at the fall of last month. Though involuntary, Facebook has shot itself in the foot.

A week after the earnings report, it then came to light that U.S monthly users- MAU- would have declined, if the company had not proceeded with its first quarter statement. We even had the opportunity to cover the story, and placed particular accent on the increased popularity of the mobile site in key markets like Europe.

While the mobile market extends favorable opportunities, it may not have any notable benefits on Facebook’s core advertising business. This is chiefly because the majority of mobile users limit their activity to messaging and commenting.

Now that we have made mention of the advertising issue, it would be in order to look into the ‘fraud’ allegations surrounding Facebook’s advertising service. At the end of last month, news of Facebook’s alleged use of bots to fake ad clicks went viral. While rumors had already started surfacing earlier, the whole situation blew wide open after Limited Run- a small startup company- left Facebook after being able to only verify 20 percent of the people who clicked on the ads.

Limited Run, previously called Limited Press while on Facebook, revealed that both commercial and proprietary analytic programs posted the same dismal results.

The owners of Limited Run left Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and made an in on Twitter.

In my line of thought, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) could be hammering the nails into its very own coffin. Recent twists of events have not been all that amusing. In the meantime Twitter is growing incredibly, and speculations of Apple forging an alliance with the social network are rife.